In an alternate universe with cancer / Kanserli Paralel Evrende

Road ahead / Onumdeki yol (Turkce altta) I had my last chemo this Tuesday. I cannot express the intensity of joy I am still feeling. Right now I think what can measure up to this can only be my first clean scan. Soon I will be feeling like a normal person again, I think I forgot how it feels. Even if the side effects I experienced were probably moderate, still it was always there: this feeling of a chemical, sort of grinding your bones and wearing you out. I am glad it is all past now. The oncologist said I should get an MRI, so next Monday will determine how chemo has affected the tumor. I hope I will not get scanxiety, I am trying not to think about it since there is nothing I can do. After that, they will schedule me for an operation, but I guess the MRI will be a decision tool on the scale of the operation. We will see, I feel prepared for all options but I guess there is no such preparation to prevent the sad feelings that may overflow once I actually hear the doctor say them....

Chemobrain / Kemo kafasi (Turkce altta) The doctor had said it: You may find it harder to focus or concentrate. It didn't bother me at the time. I was already very easily distracted, yet, who isn't these days? There is a constant flow of incoming information, even if you mute all the notifications, it is somewhere at the back of your brain. You need to check your phone! It becomes an overwhelming habit, and when you realize what it has become, the fight begins. I try not to check my phone very frequently but I think about that too, so I am distracted either way, just the duration of the distraction became much shorter. Anyways, I was already unsatisfied by my lack of focus especially while I'm reading a book, watching a movie or in a concert. I would catch myself thinking completely irrelevant things. I was never in the moment. I was doing things that I thought I would enjoy but couldn't enjoy them because I was simply not there. My mind was wandering in the worries...

An inch of cheer / 1 cm' lik sevinc (Turkce altta) I was going to wash my face when I noticed it. I had pulled my hair back (I mean the wig's hair) a bit further than usual, that's how I saw it. I had sideburns??!! I used to be bald in all those areas for months. My chemotherapy hadn't finished, so I thought ok, I don't know but this should be a false reflection. Slowly, I started opening up the wig's stickers, there it was: I had hair!! It is very short and soft and a lot of it is white, but I don't care! It felt like the disease was gone and I beat it. I wasn't aware that back in my mind, I had associated the hair with being sick, I thought I was pretty cool and accepting about the whole hair issue. But when I started crying with joy, I think for the second time all my life, I realized how important it was to me. I think a big part of it was because it came as a total surprise. I was not expecting to see any hair at all until about a month after th...

Chemotherapy (2) /  Kemoterapi  (2) -  Turkce   altta Before the chemotherapy started I was really curious about how bad it will affect me, so I wanted to share my experience in more detail especially regarding my physical condition. Please keep in mind that we are different in all sorts of ways and our experiences may be very different than one another, but still it made me feel good to hear other people's experiences so that I could prepare myself better.  My first drug was given every two weeks as I had explained in my previous post. I felt nothing during the time drugs were given, except for a severe pain in my sinuses during the last 10 minutes. It would go away in 20 minutes without taking any medicine for it. The doctor had prescribed a strong antiemetic for 3 days starting on the day of chemo. If that does not prevent the nausea, other  antiemetics  were available, and they all worked fine. I usually had sleepless nights in the first d...

Anxiety / Kaygi (Turkce altta) After the 15 minutes I spent crying and thinking in my bed the day I learned about the diagnosis (the 15 min I told you about in my "Diagnosis" post), I was up on my feet ready for whatever comes. I felt strong and ready to fight. It was the beginning of summer, so if chemo allowed I could spend it with friends, relaxing in the sun, finding serenity. I was hopeful and even more joyful than I am in normal life. I was even surprised at myself, I had never loved life that much and felt so positive. Yes, those were good times.. Then I was through the first 3 months of chemo, the drugs were starting to beat me down. I was feeling worse physically and that physical deprivation brings about these feelings and thoughts of  "I am not well, what if the treatment doesn't work, what if the cancer is spreading just now, will I die at this age" You get the picture. I started having sleepless nights with all these going on in my head like a n...

Chemotherapy / Kemoterapi (Turkce altta) My whole world collapsed when I heard the doctor say the word. It was associated with so many bad memories, it meant being weak and in pain, and worst of all being in need. I was brought up and also grew to be very self sustained; I was strong and could do whatever I want without asking anybody's help. It took me a while to understand that it's ok to ask someone do something for you. I never dreaded when a friend or family asked me to do something but somehow this was very hard for me to overcome. Certainly chemotherapy helped :) First of all, it was not (and still is not- 4 months over,1 more to go) as bad as I thought it would be. I spent few days in bed, I cannot say I functioned normally on the rest, but it is ok. You just learn your new limits, and those limits are not very restricting. I cannot go out running as I used to, I walk instead or I plan more coffee breaks when I am out and try not to wear myself out. My treatment c...

Changes to Lifestyle / Hayatimda degisenler (Turkce altta) There has been many major changes but the most dramatic one was to move back to my hometown to live with my father. That meant a long sick leave from work, being away from my own home and friends. This was sort of out of my control and the best option I had, but there are other things that I took the initiative to change:  - Food : Meat: For the past ~20 years I had reduced my meat intake, I had stopped eating poultry and fish, and limited my red meat consumption to once a week. I tried to but failed in substituting the necessary ingredients from the vegetables. So instead of trying to make this work among other things I'm dealing with, I decided to remove these restrictions and maintain a balanced diet of all kinds of meat and vegetables. I am not saying you should stop being vegetarian, I just chose to do this, call it survival instinct or barbarian, honestly I don't care Sugar: I reduced my sugar intake d...

Diagnosis / Teshis (Turkce altta) I don't know how you felt when you first heard the news. I was totally not there. It was as if I were an outsider watching, the doctor was telling somebody about some tumor; there are 4 types, this is the 2nd best and it is treatable. Ok this should be good news, I was listening but not processing well. I don't even remember most of the conversation now. I couldn't come up with any questions. Then my doer personality kicks in, and all I could say was "So what do we do next?" Next: there will be both an operation and chemotherapy but the order may be changed. They decided to go with the chemo first to take the chance of making the tumor smaller before the operation. I left the doctor's room thinking this cannot be happening to me. I lost my mom and my aunt to cancer, much before them my grandfather. And now me? At the age of 35, I couldn't believe it. Although their diagnoses were completely different, I was being tre...